Eased COVID restrictions in Canberra to allow for a return of events

All ACT students return to schools today and travel will be freely allowed between the territory and all of NSW and Victoria. International borders will also reopen to allow quarantine-free travel for Australian residents.

After restrictions were eased last Friday, cafes and restaurants will be busier this week as more customers are allowed to dine-in and there will be a slight increase in the number of office workers.

This week there will also be the first major post-lockdown event in Canberra with Melbourne Cup Day to be celebrated at Thoroughbred Park.

There will be 1000 people at the race meet, with the event receiving an exemption from ACT Health to host an extra 500 people.

The crowd will only be a fraction of what it is in a normal year, with a typical Melbourne Cup celebration attracting 5000 people.

But Canberra Racing Club chief executive Andrew Clark is just happy the event is going ahead, in fact it will be even bigger than last year.

"In 2020 we had 667, so it's even slightly above last year so that's a positive in itself," he said.

"I look forward to getting back to the pre-COVID crowd of 5000 but we're very happy to have 1000 people here this year."

Not only will the crowd be smaller than normal but a range of safety measures will need to be followed and the fan-favourite fashions on the field will be cancelled. Mr Clark said the venue would be divided into separate areas.

"The course will be broken up into six different areas. There's one area primarily for our participants to carry on their duties to allow the race meet to actually be conducted and then there's five separate areas for further patrons across the course," he said.

"Each of those areas would have access to all of their own facilities, food, beverages, toilets and also have a COVID safety marshal as well.

"There's pretty stringent measures across the course to allow everyone to have a good day but make sure it's in a COVID safe manner."

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Under the current public health restrictions, organised indoor and outdoor events have a cap of 500 people - provided it's within the allowed density limits of one person per two square metres outdoors and one person per four square metres indoors.

Events must be ticketed and a COVID-safe plan must be in place. Organisers can apply for exemptions to host above 500 people.

In the next stage of the ACT's pathway forward, both indoor and outdoor events will be allowed to go ahead with 1000 people but organisers will be able to seek exemptions to host a greater number of people. Events with more than 10,000 people will be considered provided an organiser is willing to work closely with ACT Health.

The next stage is currently slated for late-November but Chief Minister Andrew Barr said last week this was on track to be brought forward to the middle of the month.

It comes as Canberra's COVID-19 case numbers continue to remain low with only seven cases reported in the 24 hours to 8pm on Saturday.

There are nine people in hospital, including five who are in intensive care who are all being ventilated. There are 210 active cases in the territory. No new public exposure sites were identified by ACT Health on Sunday.

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